”Comrade Motlanthe, sabela uya-bizwa,”sang delegates at the conference on Sunday. ”Comrade Motlanthe, you are being called to service!”
Kgalema Motlanthe has been portrayed by both camps as the indecisive, weak link in the ANC infighting.
But in fact he is likely to go down as the saviour of Polokwane. Motlanthe appears to have set himself up perfectly. There is every chance that he will trounce Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as deputy president, thereby setting himself up for the top role.
This is not a far-fetched idea. If Jacob Zuma is charged with corruption or if he only serves one term as country president (should he become party head honcho), then Motlanthe would have played a perfect game of political chess.
At the start of the ANC conference this week, Motlanthe came to the rescue of the party when it was beginning to degenerate into chaos, with many delegates refusing to accept the authority of national chairperson Mosiuoa Lekota.
On several occasions the gathered delegates sang Umshini wam and disobeyed Lekota’s appeal to stop. The song was deliberately sung to irritate Lekota, who had condemned it as irrelevant, and Motlanthe was Lekota’s saviour.
His arrival at the microphone immediately quietened the crowd. His well-calculated interventions had the effect, intended or not, of emphasising Lekota’s emasculation from the party and Motlanthe’s growing stature within it.
By the time he had finished presenting his organisational report, some in the crowd were singing a song about Motlanthe, the unifier. In the report Motlanthe provided a critical and fair overview of all structures. Despite their support for him, he was also critical of the Youth League’s public defiance of the party. ”It cannot be correct that the Youth League pronounces and acts in a manner that creates the perception that it is not quite amenable to the organisational discipline of the ANC,” he wrote.
Since Jacob Zuma was fired as South Africa’s deputy president in 2005 by Thabo Mbeki, the party has been split into two factions: those who support the president and those who believe Zuma was the victim of a conspiracy within the ANC.
Each of the factions has separately accused Motlanthe of failing to act against the other. This week supporters of Mbeki believed that Motlanthe did not do enough to stop the rebellion against the incumbent NEC and president.
In turn the Zuma camp believed he could have done more to prevent what they see as the government’s intrusion into the party and the predominance of a faction in the ANC, particularly in the national executive committee (NEC).
Motlanthe told the Mail & Guardian earlier this year that he consistently has to field enquiries to take disciplinary action against people.
In an evenhanded and politically street-smart report, the secretary general blamed the NEC for failing to provide direction to the party and the Mbeki-Zuma power struggle for the division in the party.
But some analysts suggest that he glossed over sections, which could have been perceived as critical of Zuma.
In public Motlanthe plays it safe. When asked last Saturday about his contestation for the deputy presidency by the SABC, Motlanthe said he would rather accept a position as a member of the Bafana Bafana technical team. He has, however, accepted the nomination.
Motlanthe has consistently avoided directly answering questions over his ambitions in the party.
In an interview with the M&G earlier this year, he said he had served his one term as general secretary and had no reason to expect that members should return him to office. In a typically standard ANC response, he said he would consider his options if nominated.
”Such speculation should be treated like coffee house bubbles not worthy of a response. I will cross that bridge when I come to it.”
His supporters are less equivocal about his future. By nominating him as a deputy president, the Youth League and other members of the party are saying that they expect him to be the next president of the ANC when Zuma’s term ends. This, the league insists, is in keeping with ANC tradition that the deputy president should succeed the incumbent.
But that view is contested by the likes of ANC intellectual Joel Netshitenzhe, who say there is no such tradition in the party.
Motlanthe will also have to shake off his growing image as partisan to the rising star of Zuma and show that he is the man to answer the party’s call for solid, unbiased leadership.